Irina-Camelia Begu reached the final of the Aegon Southsea Trophy last month and has also reached the semifinals of the Istanbul Open earlier this year, losing to Elise Mertens.

Top seed Anastasija Sevastova hopes to improve on her showing last year in Bucharest, where she failed to win a game in a 6-0, 6-0 final defeat to Simona Halep, having not dropped a set on her way to the final. That victory was Halep's second in the three previous runnings of her home tournament.

Anastasija Sevastova has lost both previous meetings with Jana Cepelova - going down in two sets in Miami in 2013 and in three sets in Charleston last year.

Arantxa Rus's one previous victory over Pauline Parmentier in their three previous meetings came at 's-Hertogenbosch four years ago, either side of defeats at Poitiers, in 2009, and Saint Malo in 2013.